Venue

Description

AFQUA brings developed and developing world researchers together to discuss progress in studies of the Quaternary period (the last 2.6 million years) in Africa, bridging regional divides, and fostering communication and collaboration at both regional and continental scales.

Along with talks on subjects including palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology and archaeology, equal time is dedicated to a series of focus groups and training workshops. These include thematic discussions of cutting-edge research topics, as well as workshops that introduce and train early-career and developing researchers in the skills they need to develop and communicate their science in the modern research environment.

Program

The program will include plenary talks by world-renowned experts and provide opportunities for both oral and poster presentations.

The whole event will last nine days:- Five days of conference with oral presentations, posters and plenaries and a one-day break for field excursions (14-19 July).- Three days of focus group discussions and specialised training workshops (20-22 July).

Abstracts

Financial support

Applications for support for Early Career and Developing Country researchers closes 8 April 2018.

Focus sessions

FS01: Dating and correlation of African archives of environmental change and archaeologyFS02: Quantitative palaeoclimatology, modelling and data-model comparisons​FS03: The environmental context for hominin evolution and dispersalFS04: African Archaeological LandscapesFS05: Africa on Fire: state-of-the-art and perspectives about fire history, fire ecology and fire-vegetation-climate interactions across tropical biomesFS06: African palaeoecological and archaeological perspectives on land use transformation: Africa Landuse6K FS07: Intra- Interhemispheric teleconnectionsFS08: Applying the Quaternary: the role of the past in supporting the future

Duration: 3 daysDescription: Two major challenges are emerging from recent and ongoing GPWG2 work: 1) local, regional, continental, and global fire history must be connected to and understood in relation to modern fire data and activities, and 2) understanding the dominant controls of fire (e.g. climate, vegetation and humans) during the late Quaternary in each region is highly dependent on collaborative, interdisciplinary research.

Africa poses a particularly critical gap in our knowledge of fire history at this time. With this workshop, we aim at building a strong network of researchers focused on fire at different temporal and spatial scales (paleoecologists, archaeologists, historians, , etc.) and identify laboratories that can act as hubs to disseminate methodologies, materials and training to other facilities. The workshop will have a significant capacity-building component and it is hoped that it will inspire new work on paleofire across the continent.